Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
I’m about two seconds from a demonstration when Blake and Adam move him for me. “Beer,” Blake says. “Let’s sit and drink a fucking beer.”
Smith scrubs his jaw and smartly walks away. Blake grabs my attention. “He’s a good man.” He looks at Ashley. “That’s why you called him. Don’t let your man here forget that.” He looks at me again. “Good men are hard to find. Men you trust, and I trust him. You can, too.”
“He doesn’t trust me,” I say.
“But I do,” Ashley says. “He’ll get over it.”
“I think your trust in me is the problem.” I meet Blake’s stare. “He wants to fuck her; he might even think he loves her, and that’s a problem none of us need right now.”
Ashley sucks in a breath and then objects. “He doesn’t—”
“He’s right,” Blake replies, eyeing her and then me. “I’ll deal with him. Right now, I have information you want. And beer.” He holds his hands out to his sides. “What the fuck more could you want?”
Ashley as my wife, safe, fucking me, moaning for me, strolling on the damn beach with me. I want Ashley. The way she defended me only makes me want her more. I pull her close. I will never have her close enough. “Let’s sit.”
Blake nods, and he and his team walk toward the living room. Ashley catches my arm, and I turn to face her, my hands settling on her waist. “I wish you would have warned me.”
“If Smith thought you acted nervous, he’d become a bigger liability than he is right now.”
“He’s the reason Walker’s involved,” she reminds me.
“You’re the reason Walker’s involved,” I counter. “He’s the reason we almost walked away from their help.”
“You’re forgetting that he’s the reason I trusted them. Please remember that, Aaron. He’s a good man.”
“Beer is served,” Blake calls out.
I stroke her hair, her eyes etched with worry, with fear, too, damn it. I want that fear gone, and that’s exactly why I’m willing to work with Walker. “Anytime we let someone else in, it’s a risk. It opens the door to a leak, and the men who are after us will find that leak. But I opened that door with Walker and you know why?” I don’t wait for her reply. I cup her head, press my cheek to hers, and lean in close, my voice low at her ear. “Because I’m not torturing you with a life on the run one day longer than I have to. Because I fucking love you when I didn’t even think I could love.”
She sucks in a breath again and pulls back to look at me, her eyes glistening, as she mouths, “I love you, too.”
Warmth like I’ve never known outside my time with this woman expands inside me. She laces the fingers of one of her hands with mine, and that unity she’s offered me without words calms that storm inside me that I felt only minutes before to a manageable level.
We join Adam, Blake, and yes, Smith, in the living room, them on the couch with Blake at the center and Smith the farthest from us. Ashley and I share an oversized brown leather chair with her on my right and the Walker team on my left. In other words, I’m between her and them.
“You were working on a case when you met Ashley,” Blake states, setting a file on the coffee table. “That’s what I know about him.”
“Who’s the client?” Ashley asks. “And please just confirm for me that Cole isn’t in danger.”
Cole being her old boss, one of the owning partners of the firm that she worked for. “Cole is safe,” I say.
“The client in question left the firm three months ago,” Blake adds, “and I know details that I can’t share. I’ll just say that Cole and Reese, his partner, don’t align with criminals, and they recognized him as that and more.”
“Who is he?” Ashley presses.
“Desmond White,” I say. “The CEO of a defense company that sold arms to the wrong people, translated to mean our enemies. I believe there were higher-ups in our government involved.”
“As do I,” Blake replies. “I assume you got too close to those people, and you were dealt with.”
“Maybe,” I agree, “but for reasons I can’t name, that doesn’t feel right. That feels too cut and dry, too obvious.”
“I met Desmond White,” Ashley replies. “He wasn’t represented by Cole, but rather our corporate division we had just added to the firm. He seemed honorable, like a proud American.”
“They always do,” I say. “The really bad ones always seem good.”
“He took on a new head of security right before you went down,” Blake says. “I believe you know him.”
“Don’t dangle information,” I reply shortly. “Who the hell is it?”
“Mick Ross,” he says.
The name rips through me like an icy blade, carving out my spine. I know him. I know him all too fucking well, and his name explains why Ashley is being hunted. Why the woman I love is such a fucking target.